The Dark Divide (62 page)

‘We know where they are. But they crossed into a realm without magic,’ Jamaspa reminded him. ‘We cannot follow them there. We need a part-human rift runner. Someone with experience dealing with this sort of thing.’

‘Why not send Brogan?’ Ciarán asked, thinking of the young man who had been tricked by Marcroy into betraying the location of Rónán and Darragh, and exposing them to all sorts of charges by implying they were bringing
eileféin
through the rift. ‘He’s clearly on the side of the
sídhe
these days.’

‘Brogan is Marcroy’s creature now. For obvious reasons, we can’t tell him anything about this.’

‘You’ll get no argument from me on that,’ Ciarán agreed. ‘But even if what you say is true, give me one good reason why
I
should help you? There are no Emperor twins in this realm. How do I know you’re not making up all this about RónánDarragh? Setting me up to betray the boys I’m sworn to protect, the same way Marcroy subverted Brogan?’

‘We have no Emperor twins in this realm —
yet
,’ Jamaspa agreed, his size reducing to a more manageable shape. Ciarán had been grateful for that. It was hard to look a
djinni
in the eyes when you couldn’t see both of them at the same time.

‘
Yet
?’

‘As soon as they got word we were planning to transfer the power from RónánDarragh to the new heirs, the
Matrarchaí
were throwing fertile young women at Darragh — the only twin they could get their hands on — in order to preserve his bloodline and perhaps get themselves a set of Emperor twins.’

‘The
Matrarchaí
?’ Ciarán scoffed. ‘Seriously?
That’s
the boogieman the Brethren fear? A bunch of gossipy old midwives?’

‘What you think of our fears is irrelevant, Ciarán. What you seem to be missing here is that Rónán and Darragh may be strong enough to survive the transfer. If that happens you must bring them home. Protect them. As you are sworn to do.’

There had been no arguing with that.

Ciarán forced his attention back to the present, as the tipstaff ordered everyone to rise. A moment later, a dark-haired woman entered the court from the door behind the highest desk in the room. She was dressed in a long black robe with a stiff white tie at her neck and a ridiculous wig that fitted her very badly, as did the wigs sitting on the heads of the two men facing the judge.

As the judge took her seat, Ciarán glanced at the pamphlet he’d picked up outside the court, which offered a simple explanation of the proceedings, a description of the court and who did what. The tipstaff informed the people in the court they could sit. Ciarán glanced down at the brochure as he sat down, identifying the man who rose next as the Registrar. The list of charges against Darragh the man read out was long.

Darragh had been busy the few short weeks he’d been residing in Rónán’s reality.

They were charging him with conspiracy to commit murder, grand larceny, kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap, assaulting an officer of the Gardaí, and a score of minor charges that hardly seemed worth the effort after the main charges were detailed. Darragh remained still and passive throughout the reading, as if he wasn’t bothered in the slightest by the damning indictments.

All the while a young blonde woman sat beside the Registrar, tapping away on a machine Ciarán assumed was to keep a record of the proceedings. There were no bards in this world to remember the words spoken here,
verbatim
. They had to rely on mechanical means.

The jury box to Ciarán’s right was empty. He didn’t know if that was because they hadn’t called the jury yet, or didn’t intend to use one.

Eventually, the Registrar came to the end of the list and looked directly at Darragh and asked, ‘How do you plead?’

Darragh rose to his feet and looked at the judge. His gaze was serene and unflinching. ‘Guilty,’ he said in a clear voice that rang out across the courtroom.

Ciarán got the feeling he was the only one in the room who was surprised.

The judge nodded, as if she was expecting as much. ‘Do you understand what it means to plead guilty?’ she asked.

Darragh nodded. ‘Yes, your honour.’

The judge glanced down at her desk and turned some papers over, read through them for a few moments and then looked up and spoke to Darragh again. ‘It is my understanding that despite being willing to plead guilty to these offences, young man, you are not willing to divulge the location of the kidnap victim or your accomplices to her abduction or any details regarding the murder of Mr Warren Maher. Is that correct?’

‘I have given the authorities all the information I have, your honour,’ Darragh replied calmly. ‘They simply refuse to believe me.’

The judge turned her attention to Darragh’s barrister. Ciarán could not see his face, because he was facing the judge, but he was hard-pressed to imagine Darragh was receiving adequate counsel from any man wearing such a ridiculous wig. ‘My client insists Hayley Boyle, the kidnap victim, and his accomplices, Chelan Kavanaugh, Trása Ni’Amergin and the woman known only as Sorcha, have gone through a rift to another reality, your honour,’ the barrister explained as he rose to his feet. ‘For this reason, we ask that her honour considers a sentence in an appropriate mental facility, where this young man’s obvious psychiatric issues can be treated accordingly.’

The judge pursed her lips, unconvinced. ‘Yes, I read your sentencing submission, Mr Gallagher,’ she said. ‘I also read the report from Doctor Semaj, who believes this young man is quite sane and trying to fake insanity for exactly that purpose.’

‘Our own psychologist disagrees with that assessment, your honour.’

‘Your psychologist is paid to disagree with it, Mr Gallagher,’ the judge pointed out unsympathetically. ‘I am also bothered by your client’s lack of remorse, and his unwillingness to take responsibility for his crimes.’

‘The Probation Report recommends the maximum sentence possible in this case, your honour,’ the prosecuting barrister
pointed out, rising to his feet to stand beside Gallagher. ‘The offender doesn’t believe he has committed any crime.’

‘Hence the reason we feel a secure mental institution would be the most appropriate place for him at this time,’ Gallagher responded, glancing at the prosecutor with a frown.

‘I have no doubt your client has issues, Mr Gallagher,’ the judge said, closing the file on her desk. ‘But one sees offenders with
issues
every day of the week, and there are plenty of young men out there with
issues
who don’t feel the need to deal with them by kidnapping and murder. My hands are tied in any case. You client is pleading guilty to conspiracy to murder. I am compelled to impose a mandatory life sentence …’

Ciarán closed his eyes, letting the judge’s voice fade into the background as she detailed the rest of his sentence, which didn’t matter anyway, because Darragh had just been sentenced to life imprisonment.

He opened his eyes and looked at Darragh. The young man was listening attentively to the judge, but didn’t seem concerned.
He believes we’ll come for him
, Ciarán realised.

And he knows if he is alive, Rónán is alive out there somewhere, too.

It would take some doing, to extract Darragh from this mess, Ciarán decided. They’d broken Rónán out of the Garda cells the first time, but that wasn’t as heavily guarded as a maximum-security prison. To make matters worse, this whole realm felt like it was under siege at the moment. Springing Darragh from his current predicament was going to take more knowledge of this realm than Ciarán owned.

He couldn’t do it alone.

I need Rónán
, Ciarán said to himself.
I need his knowledge of this world. I need to find him, bring him back to this realm, bust Darragh out of prison and then take both boys home together.

Then they could deal with the
Matrarchaí
, Jamaspa, Marcroy Tarth, Colmán, Álmhath and the fallout from the superseded Undivided still being alive and well, when by all that was right and holy, they should be dead.

Ciarán looked at Darragh again, hoping … willing him this time … to turn around and look at him — to meet his eye, recognise his old mentor and friend and know that someone who cared knew where he was and would do whatever it took to get him home.

But Darragh stayed stoic and calm as the judge sealed his fate. And even when he was led from the court in shackles to begin his new life behind bars, Darragh held his head high and didn’t look back.

EPILOGUE

Tír Na nÓg.
Hayley said the words over and over to herself, as she waited for Elimyer to return with her food. She glanced at her wrist, wondering at the time, but in this world she had no wristwatch to mark the passing of the hours. She hadn’t worn her watch since the accident. They’d been talking about giving her a Braille watch at St Christopher’s, but she didn’t need one now.

Hayley could see, better than ever.

What she was seeing was still hard to comprehend. This magical place didn’t even exist in her reality. But here she was an honoured guest of the Faerie, about to be served a meal by a real live Faerie princess.

Hayley glanced around to see who was watching and then pinched herself on the inside of her thigh to check she was awake. The pain made her grimace, but nothing else changed.
Tír Na nÓg
didn’t vanish in a puff of smoke, to be replaced by her room at St Christopher’s. The magical trees didn’t recede to be replaced by the concrete rendered walls of the rehab facility with its brightly painted décor designed to cheer up the inmates, most of whom were blind, and therefore not able to appreciate the colour scheme, anyway. Hayley thought it odd that she could tell the colour of the walls now. She’d been blind the whole time
she was at St Christopher’s. How could she know what the place looked like?

Perhaps the doctors had been right. Perhaps her eyes had been able to see all this time, and it was her brain that let her down by not interpreting the messages correctly. She smiled, thinking of the shocked reaction she was going to get when she finally arrived home, completely cured and full of tales about being saved by Faeries.

They’ll think I’ve gone mad.

‘Here you are, my dear,’ Elimyer said, as she floated across the wide bough carrying a silver tray of fruit. ‘I hope you like it. These are my daughter’s favourites.’

Hayley still hadn’t got her head around the idea that this girl was Trása’s mother. It didn’t seem possible. ‘Did Trása grow up here in
Tír Na nÓg
?’

Elimyer shook her head, and put the tray down beside Hayley. The fruit was a selection of apples, pomegranates, nectarines, peaches, apricots and strawberries. Each individual fruit was perfect, like the sort they showed in advertisements — flawless and nothing like the specimens available for sale in the shops. ‘No, we lived in
Sí an Bhrú
until she was almost a woman. I was her father’s muse, for a time. And then they began to worry about her attachment to Darragh so it was decided it might be best to separate them.’

‘Why? What’s wrong with Darragh?’ Hayley had only had one brief encounter with Ren’s twin, but he hadn’t seemed so bad.

‘Nothing is wrong with him, dear,’ Elimyer said, taking a seat on the bough beside her. ‘Are you a rift runner?’

‘I don’t think so. What’s a rift runner?’

‘Human and mongrel like my daughter,’ Elimyer said. ‘Funny … I thought that’s how you came from another reality.’

The idea that there were other versions of her having entirely different lives in an endless number of realities was almost too
much for Hayley to comprehend. It was one thing to know about the theoretical possibility of alternate realities, quite another to confront the idea that somewhere out there in another universe, someone was leading her life and maybe even doing it better than she was.

It might be healthier, Hayley decided, not to dwell on that idea for too long.

Hayley glanced down and realised the apple she’d selected was gone. She didn’t even remember biting into it.

‘Are you settling in?’ Marcroy asked from behind.

She jumped a little at the unexpected voice and turned to find her Faerie prince standing on the bough behind her. She hadn’t even heard him approach. Hayley smiled up at him, thinking it was criminal to be that handsome and have magical powers to boot.

‘You’re back!’ Elimyer announced, quite unnecessarily.

‘I have been at
Sí an Bhrú
,’ he told his sister. ‘The transfer is done.’

‘Is it past
Lughnasadh
already?’

Lughnasadh
? Hayley thought.
How can that be?
‘That’s the autumn equinox isn’t it? But that’s weeks away.’ She was quite sure she had been here in
Tír Na nÓg
for little more than an hour or two.

Neither Elimyer nor Marcroy answered her question. But she wasn’t bothered. She was well again, she was safe and the Faerie all seemed very friendly. They had healed her blindness, just like Ren said they would.

I’ll just stay here a little longer
, Hayley decided.
And then I’ll get Marcroy to open the rift and he can send me home, and I can explain about the mix-up and they’ll have to believe me, because I have proof. I can see.

Ren and Darragh hadn’t made it through the rift with her. They were back home, probably in a bit of trouble, given all the
cops in Dublin were bearing down on them when she stepped through the rift. There were bullets flying around, too, although Marcroy now seemed fully recovered from his brush with a bullet from her realm.

Ren and Darragh will be fine. A night in gaol wouldn’t hurt them. It certainly wasn’t the first time Ren had spent a night behind bars. Kiva’s lawyer, Eunice Ravenel, would have them out on bail before dawn, knowing how efficient she was.

I’ll go home tomorrow
, Hayley told herself, closing her eyes to appreciate the sublime flavour of the apricot she chose next.
And when I get back, I’ll explain everything. After that, life can go back to normal. Like it was back before the accident. Back before Trása arrived in my world and everything went pear-shaped. It’ll be just like none of this ever happened
, she thought, smiling up at Marcroy.